The Truth Is Here

Rhymesayers; 2009

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If you want a striking glimpse at one MC's potential future, listen to Brother Ali's celebratory day-after reaction to Barack Obama's election on the web-released "Mr. President (You're the Man)". It sounds giddy and spontaneous, though for all I know it could've been recorded the day after McCain claimed "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" and saved for November 5th. Coming from a rapper who made his name on social contemplation, righteous anger, and battle-rap vengeance, Ali's joy and (guarded) hopefulness in the humbling face of history resulted in a rare but revealing moment of optimism. Question is, how much of that's going to carry into his subsequent work?

Being a comparatively small collection of B-sides, outtakes, and new material, The Truth Is Here EP doesn't completely answer that question. Meant to tide fans over until the projected fall release of his follow-up to The Undisputed Truth, The Truth Is Here catches the lingering shockwaves of that 2007 album's fierce momentum, packages them under a title that invokes one of its more defining hooks, and somehow manages to work as an album without giving off that stale odds-and-sods feel. It wouldn't seem the least bit out of place as a pack-in with some theoretical future deluxe edition of The Undisputed Truth: there's a whole lot of beats by his regular producer Ant, who contributes some comfortingly familiar barfly lounge-jazz vibes in the woozy muted horns of "Real as Can Be" and the somnambulant last-call piano of the ironically-titled (or at least ironically-sequenced) closer "Begin Here", not to mention the usual brand of uptempo, heavy-bumping soul-derived anthems that's permeated Ali's last couple records ("Palm the Joker"; "The Believers"). And when it comes to subject matter, The Truth Is Here hews pretty closely to its predecessor album's b-boy snapshot of political (and personal) turmoil at the conclusion of the Bush years.

And, let's face it, the beginning of the Obama years, too: With the continued expansion of settlements on Israel's West Bank this spring and February's shooting death of a 14-year-old Palestinian stone-thrower by an IDF soldier, Ali's "Philistine David"-- originally part of the soundtrack to Jonathan Demme's 2007 documentary Jimmy Carter Man From Plains-- could've been recorded last month. It could turn out to be one of his most contentious tracks-- which is saying a lot for the man who recorded "Uncle Sam Goddamn"-- but by stepping into the perspective of a teenage, Palestinian potential suicide bomber and depicting him as a sympathetic figure with understandable (if desperate) motives, he's articulately humanized a struggle in a way most artists have a difficult time doing. Closer to home, "Little Rodney" examines the psychological damage that comes with being incarcerated ("Boxed in, dropped in a hole and forgotten/ Frozen to the core of your soul feelin' rotten"), "Good Lord" is an introspective, gospel-tinged examination of his Muslim faith, and "Palm the Joker" teems with non-specific but interconnected diatribes about an overwhelming sense of urban despair: "I see a poor victim's face/ Reflected on the pawn shop's glass pistol case/ The breath make it foggy and then it gets clear/ Now which metal here would fit best in the ear?"

These are subjects that aren't just going to trundle down to some Crawford ranch and disappear, so there's no reason to imagine Ali's firebrand politics are going to diminish any-- and if they inexplicably do, there's still his mic-controller pride at stake. Ali's battle-rap bonafides serve as a sort of flipside to his political facet; quite literally, in the case of "Talkin' My Shit", since it originally came out as the B-side to one of the limited-edition 12" pressings of "Uncle Sam Goddamn". It's one of those classic Ali trash-talk cuts, mixing self-effacement with hard-assedness-- "Labels turn me off, I ain't what they lookin' for/ I ain't got a six-pack, tattoo or a bullet hole/ But I'm muscle underneath all that, you get your peanut smacked/ I scrap like Butterbean on crack"-- but it comes across with a vibe of grateful, earned arrogance. There's more of it where that came from-- including the requisite Minneapolis summit with an enjoyably snotty Slug on "The Believers"-- but it doesn't necessarily dominate. Then again, between the politics, the road anthems, the battle tracks, the gratitude tracks, and the love song ("Baby Don't Go"), no one aspect of Ali's personality really dominates. The Truth Is Here is all the stronger for it, and that can only be considered a good sign.